Wellington is sometimes known as the Windy City. We've experienced that from the Botanic Garden and also from Greg's house in Johnsonville, high up on one of the surrounding hills on the walk down to the main road to catch the bus into town or, in today's case to collect the hire car.
We drove north along the western coastal strip and for once on our journeys recently, there were very few birds. Parts of the coast were quite rocky, but the road curved inland after Otaki. Much of the land was used as pasture for dairy cattle and sheep, although there was some maize and occasionally vegetables - potatoes, tomatoes, onions. The plain widened out and cut through the gap between the Puketoi Range and Ruahine Range, both of which had deeply incised slopes.
There were small pockets of vines but nothing like the blanket coverage we've seen previously.
We stopped for a packed lunch just south of Palmerston North and beheld the largest array of wind turbines I've seen, probably in excess of two hundred. You could see the effectiveness of the winds, even at the distance from which we viewed them.
We are now in Napier with two more super hosts, Greg's parents!
Close shaves
Dave writes:
1. Stupidly trying to prise toast out of the toaster this morning with a knife while not realising it was still on.
2. Being so distracted in new hire car and not noticing a car already on the roundabout. Narrowest of misses as Jean shouted and I braked just in time. Could have been end of holiday as I doubt any hirer would have taken us on after what so nearly occurred.
The new car is a 1.5 Mini Cooper just big enough for our ever expanding luggage.
Typical that we had a problem as we collected from Europcar who could not give us the promised manual drive.
Eventually they produced the mini which is fine though the root cause of the near-accident was me flicking on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicators and looking to solve the issue rather than attending to traffic issues.
Lesson learnt, I trust.
Sent from my iPhone
Dave writes:
1. Stupidly trying to prise toast out of the toaster this morning with a knife while not realising it was still on.
2. Being so distracted in new hire car and not noticing a car already on the roundabout. Narrowest of misses as Jean shouted and I braked just in time. Could have been end of holiday as I doubt any hirer would have taken us on after what so nearly occurred.
The new car is a 1.5 Mini Cooper just big enough for our ever expanding luggage.
Typical that we had a problem as we collected from Europcar who could not give us the promised manual drive.
Eventually they produced the mini which is fine though the root cause of the near-accident was me flicking on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicators and looking to solve the issue rather than attending to traffic issues.
Lesson learnt, I trust.
Sent from my iPhone
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